1 Samuel 15 (Saul Rejected as King / Samuel Hacks Agag to Pieces)

Saul’s Rejection and the Command to Destroy Amalek

Let's turn to 1 Samuel chapter 15. This is an important chapter where Saul is officially rejected as king. The Lord has already indicated this, but it's as if the Lord gives Saul one more chance. King Saul is given a command to follow, and instead of carrying it out, he only follows the instruction to a degree, which when it comes to obeying God, if you only obey God to a degree, that means you're not obeying God.

Or if you're only obedient, you know, 70 or whatever, that means you're actually disobedient. And of course, Saul is going to make his excuses and the way he frames it, he makes it sound like his disobedience.

He's really just doing God a favor. That's really my motivation here. And uh, isn't that the way people are? You know, the Lord will speak his word. People don't listen. And then when confronted, uh, then come all the excuses or here's how they explain that.

No, no, no.

I actually meant to do the right thing. This is actually good, even though it contradicts, uh, the scripture. So long story short, this act of rebellion from King Saul, it causes the prophet Samuel to rebuke him.

And then the chapter ends with Samuel speaking to Saul for one last, uh, one last time. And really that means by the end of the chapter, all communication from God has already been cut off. God is not talking to Saul anymore.

And now Samuel's not talking to him. So things are getting, uh, going from bad to worse for the King. So let's begin reading first Samuel chapter 15, starting in verse one, Samuel also said.

To Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint you King over his people, over Israel. Now therefore heed the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how we ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt.

Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have and do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel.

So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Tilaim, 200 ,000 foot soldiers and 10 ,000 men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley.

Then Saul said to the Kenites, go, depart, get down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.

So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites and Saul attacked the Amalekites from heaven all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs and all that was good and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless that they utterly destroyed.

Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel.

I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.

Divine Judgment, Mercy, and the Problem of Partial Obedience

Okay, so the Lord speaks through Samuel, the prophet to Saul, giving him a mission to just wipe out, completely wipe out the Amalekites. The scripture says, here's a verse that relates to this. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.

So back when God's people left Egypt during the Exodus, if you remember the story, the Amalekites attack them in the wilderness. So now it's basically payback time. So the command is very, very clear.

Total annihilation. Verse three, the Lord says to utterly destroy the Amalekites, destroy them. And what's the reason behind it? For what they did to God's people, Israel, hundreds of years earlier. Now does Saul do this?

Does Saul carry out the Lord's command? Well, uh, no, he doesn't because he spared their king and he spared the best of the livestock. Remember, God said total annihilation, wipe, kill, kill them all is what God said.

And Saul didn't kill them all. So he disobeyed. So however someone wants to spin this, whatever excuses Saul makes, the fact of the matter is God told him to do one thing and Saul fell short of that. He disobeyed God.

He flat out didn't follow the Lord's command. Now I realize this is a hard pill for some people to swallow. God commanding Israel to just destroy the Amalekites, including their women and children. This has led some people to question the goodness of God, but of course this isn't the first time something like this has happened and it's not going to be the last time either.

Remember something. I don't know why people get hung up on this passage because you remember in the book of Genesis where, I don't know, God destroyed, you know, the entire earth's population in the flood.

Like every living creature that walked on the earth died in the flood except for Noah and his family and the animals on the ark. And what God did the first time in destroying the earth with water, he has promised to do a second time in our future.

The second time he's going to do it with fire. The battle known as Armageddon and then of course Gog and Magog, we can talk about that. But the point is it happened once, it's going to happen again. So while on a human level it's understandable to struggle with such questions, but for the Christian we have to have faith that the judge of all the earth will do what is right.

Because here's the only other option that you demonize God. You say, God, what kind of monster? We used to have a woman in Sunday school when stuff like this would come up. She would say, what kind of God would do, what kind of monster would God be if he commanded such a thing?

Of course, like, well, you know, God did command it. So what do you, what are you saying? And it's sort of a predictable response or a question that people are going to ask this, but really you have two options.

Either trust in the Lord that he did this for a reason and had a just cause or God is the villain. I mean, I don't see any other options. You just deny that the Bible is true, I guess.

Right?

So this is a very crucial thing to get right. God did command them to wipe out the Amalekites. So like I said, it's, it's understandable on a human level to read this and to kind of struggle with this, but you have to trust that the Lord, the judge of all the earth, Genesis 18 says he will do what is right.

Some people have likened this to euthanizing a pet. You know, it's not what you want to do, but it's the best option. We know that God is merciful, but God also knows that these people, the Amalekites, they were helplessly sick.

Their nation was wicked. Just the Canaanite tribes, they practiced human sacrifice. Some of the legends, at least with the Assyrians, they would skin people alive. So when God says, Hey, wipe out this people group, I personally, I'm going to trust God that he knows what he's doing and I'm not going to question God.

If you choose to question God, that's between you and him, I suppose. But I believe that the judge of all the earth will do and does do what is right. So the nation of the Amalekites, they were wicked and God in his foreknowledge, he knew that the next generation was going to grow up to be just as bad, if not worse, as the generation before them.

So in some ways you could view this as an act of judgment, which it was, but it can also be seen at the same time as an act of mercy. How many Israelite lives would be spared? If you believe in some sort of age of accountability, I mean, there's some sort of argument to be made that this is actually a merciful act on the children as well, but I don't want to spend any more time on this.

Suffice to say that God is just, and if God says that a human being is to die, God is not unjust in saying that they must have done something deserving of death. See, we live in a day and age where the prison system, you know, these heinous criminals come before the judge and the judge gives them a slap on the wrist and locks them in a cage for a few months and then sets them loose and they go out and reoffend.

See, we're so used to injustice that when we look at God's justice, which is right, we object to it. So we don't want to be conformed to this world. Okay, moving on. The bottom line is some cultures are so evil.

They're so evil and God and his foreknowledge knows they're never going to turn around. They invoke the judgment of the Lord and Saul here is God's hammer. He shows kindness to the Kenites because the Kenites, this people group was descended from the father-in-law of Moses, Jethro.

So they were friendly with the children of Israel. So they got mercy. The Amalekites, however, who are descended from Esau, that nation receives no mercy, at least from God. But what does Saul do? Saul shows mercy by sparing the king.

So God says no mercy. Saul shows mercy to the king again, disobedience verse nine, but Saul and the people spared a gag and the best of the sheep, the ox and the fatlings and lambs and all that was good and were unwilling to utterly destroy them.

So the Lord says, wipe them all out. Saul says, nah, I'm going to spare a few. This reminds me of a sermon I heard one time and the title was something to the effect, you know, people who think they're more loving than God or people who think they're more gracious than God is.

And I don't think this is necessarily Saul's motivation. I think Saul probably coveted the goods, the livestock. He probably wanted to show off his prisoner of war. But I think there are people out there who view God as, you know, God is mean.

God is harsh. And well, you know, I would never do something like that. So I am more loving than God. I am more merciful than God.

Okay.

That's a puffed up attitude. If you think you are more merciful than the Lord, that just proves you don't understand the Lord and you don't even understand yourself. Or some people say, well, if I were God, I would do it this way.

Yeah.

Well, if you were God, you know, God help us all. But the common response is what kind of God would do this? Well, the only kind of God that there is, because this is what he did do. Because if that's your response, what kind of God would do this?

It sure sounds like you're saying that you know better than God. And the fact of the matter is you don't. So if you're ever tempted to say something like that, please stop and reconsider. What are you saying?

Because while it's common for us to not understand something in the Bible, I don't want to downplay the fact that sometimes we read scripture and we don't understand it. We don't have all the facts. We struggle with things.

That's normal. And it's happened to you. It's happened to me. But for the Lord's sake and for your sake, do not make accusations like that against God. When we see God's wrath and justice on display, his judgment is always just.

When you and I get upset, it's not always righteous. We're not always just in the things that we want to see happen. But God is. Now, King Saul, by sparing Agag, king of the Amalekites, and sparing the animals, he has sinned in the eyes of the Lord.

Remember, God told him, wipe them all out. Saul spares them. And when he does this, now Samuel shows up to confront Saul and Saul tries to make excuses. He tries to make his sin look good. Verse 10 says, Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel saying, I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.

And it grieved Samuel and he cried out to the Lord all night. And by the way, when it says that God, or this is what the Lord says, I regret setting up Saul as king. And people say, well, but didn't God know this was going to happen?

How does God regret it? Well, I wouldn't read into that too much. Saul is displeased, or excuse me, God is displeased with Saul. Verse 12. So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel saying, Saul went to Carmel and indeed he set up a monument for himself and he has gone on around passing by and gone down to Gilgal.

Now, then Samuel went to Saul and Saul said to him, blessed are you of the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Now is that true? No, it's not true. That's what Saul is claiming, but Samuel said, Oh, really?

What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen, which I hear like, correct me if I'm wrong, but God told you to kill all the animals and I'm hearing a bunch of barnyard noises here, so it doesn't look like you actually perform the commandment of the Lord.

Verse 15 and Saul said, well, they have brought them from the Amalekites. You know, it's, it's the people, the people spare the best of the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord, your God, and the rest we utterly destroyed.

So in verse 11, it's clearly stated, Saul has not obeyed. He set up a monument in his honor, which kind of shows you where his heart is. And when Saul realizes that Samuel is like calling him out, what does Saul do?

He shifts the blame onto someone else. He blames the people. He blames his soldiers. Of course, he's their general. So it's, you know, the buck stops here, as they say. But this idea of shifting the blame, this is always the way, right?

When Adam was in the garden and he sinned, what did he do? He told the Lord, well, the woman you gave me, you know, it's, it's her fault. And some people have seen it's, you know, Adam blaming God to a certain degree, you know, it was the woman or Lord, you gave her to me, you know, it's not, it's not my fault.

Aaron did this when Moses was on the Mount and the people called for a golden calf, right? Make us a golden calf, make us an idol. Oh, that was the people, Aaron said, that was their idea. You know, all I did was put the gold into this furnace and out popped this golden calf.

You know, I don't know. Don't blame me. But this is what people do. They shift the blame. It's not my fault. It's always somebody else's fault. And that's what Saul tries to do. But we can look back and we see the narrator giving the story.

We know all the facts. We know that Saul is disobedient. Saul is not following the Lord. Saul, you could say is the Lord of his own life. When confronted with his sin, he doesn't take responsibility, makes excuses, shifts the.

Blame.

And if you've ever been around someone who's backslidden, or if you've ever been backslidden yourself, you can probably recognize that, yeah, I've done this too. Because when you're in sin and someone calls you out on it, you know, nine times out of ten people are not at the point where they're ready to confess and repent of that.

So instead they just try to come up with all sorts of ways to try to wiggle out of it. This is sort of standard operating procedure for sinners. As a pastor, I've seen this. This is something that is very common when someone gets out of church or they're no longer serving God, they fall into a pattern of making bad decisions.

People in that condition almost never admit to what they're doing. And if you or someone else like Samuel can sort of points out the obvious, you just know how they're going to react. No, no, no, you're wrong.

Here's why. Here's the excuses. It's not my fault. It's this person's fault. You know, I'd be, I'd be faithful. It wasn't for this person. Or if somebody is really bold in their disobedience, they'll say, no, no, I'm actually doing the right thing.

You know, this is what Saul does. I mean, this is the amazing thing about it. He said, no, no, I disobeyed. Of course he doesn't put it that way, but he says, I spared the animals for God's sake. I did it for God.

And doesn't that sound pious? You know, Samuel, the implication is Samuel, you're wrong. You better go back and talk to God again because I think God is actually pleased that I did.

This.

Now, did Saul really spare the animals just to sacrifice them? He almost certainly did not. He's thinking on his feet, you know, as far as excuses go, this, this excuse sound actually sounds pretty good and maybe Saul could pull the wool over some people's eyes, but he's not pulling the wool over Samuel's eyes and he's definitely not pulling the wool over God's eyes.

You say, well, but he did kill most of the people or most of the animals.

Yeah.

But again, partial obedience is actually disobedience. Here is the principle from the word of God, James chapter two, verse 10, for whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of what?

He's guilty of all. Even if Saul did the right thing and all of these, he did the right thing here and here and here, but he did the wrong thing here. He sinned. He's guilty.

He's guilty.

And someone might respond to that, you know, whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he shall be guilty of all you say, well, where's the hope in that? You know, who is it who has never stumbled?

I mean, Saul sins and God just punishes him. Well, this is a pattern. Saul, his behavior is getting worse and worse and worse. God is not up in heaven just waiting for you to mess up once and then he's going to lower the boom on you.

That's not the way it is.

And that's not what's going on here. Saul, it is a consistent pattern of rebellion that's getting worse and worse and worse. And by the way, there is one person who has never stumbled. There is one person who has never broken any commandment in the law, and that person is Jesus Christ who is fully willing and able to forgive you if you would turn to him.

And this is something that Saul has always had an opportunity to do. Saul could always admit he's wrong, repent, and then turn away from that behavior. But that's just something that he's not interested in.

And when you compare Saul to David, I mean, David will sin as well. So what's the difference between Saul and David? Some people have argued, I've heard people say this, and you know, it's a valid point.

I think that when you look at some of the things that David did, David's sin almost seems worse than Saul. So why is it that David is blessed and Saul gets cut off? Well, what it really comes down to, and it really comes down to this, whether or not a person goes to heaven, it's not about your list of sins.

It's whether or not you have a heart for God. It's whether or not you love and trust in the Lord. See, David, whatever you can say about him, David had a heart for God. Saul, yeah, not so much. Saul never really seemed all that concerned with making things right.

Instead, his behavior, it's, I mean, making a monument to yourself. I mean, that's pretty bad. I mean, even if somebody wanted to make a monument for him, he should have said, no, make an altar to the Lord.

But to make a monument for yourself, I mean, that just says it all. Saul is the Lord of his own life. And that's the way a lot of people are today. Jesus is not Lord of their life. They are the Lord of their own lives.

David, however, is a man after God's own heart. And the Lord will tell Saul through Samuel that the kingdom, because of this, the kingdom will be taken from you and given. Well, it's given to David, but David hasn't been introduced.

Notice what it says, though. We're going to read this in a moment. The Lord is speaking to Saul. He says, I'm going to take the kingdom from you and give it to someone better than you. That's going to hurt.

Samuel’s Rebuke, Saul’s Excuses, and the Heart of Obedience

So Saul shifts the blame. He's making excuses. Samuel is having none of it, though. Samuel said to Saul, be quiet and I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night. So Saul said, speak on. Samuel said, when you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of all the tribes of Israel and did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?

Now the Lord sent you on a mission and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do evil in the sight of the Lord?

And Saul said to Samuel, but I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. See, Saul is not listening. He continues to just kind of dig in his heels. He's not willing to admit he's wrong. So in his heart, he is persisting in sin, which is the problem.

Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to offer all these sacrifices. Well, God is not interested in your sacrifices. If your heart is not right, all the sacrifices in the world are not going to matter. If your heart isn't right.

Verse 22, Samuel said, has the Lord as great delight and burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? In other words, this is what God really wants. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.

And to heed, to listen is better than the fat of rams. You know, sort of like with children, you know, as a parent, what do you want? You want your child to love you and to obey you. When you tell them to do something, you want them to do it.

You want them to trust what you're saying. And when kids do the wrong thing, it's nice to have them say, sorry, but it would be far better if they never did the wrong thing to begin with. So sacrifices are good.

They are instituted by God. But what God really wants is for you to not sin in the first place. And when God sees that you're just committed to sin and you don't really care, you're not taking responsibility, it's always someone else's fault.

Sacrifices at this point doesn't matter. Verse 23, Samuel says, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. And what do we see later on? Saul actually goes out and he seeks out a witch, a spiritual medium, the witch at Endor.

Then Samuel says, because you have rejected the word of the Lord, God has also rejected you from being king. And it's only then that Saul breaks down and finally admits that he was wrong. But he doesn't admit that he's wrong based on the story.

It doesn't seem that he's actually penitent that he has sinned against a holy God. No, Saul is more upset about the consequences. And now Samuel turns to leave verse 27, and it says, Saul seized the edge of his robe and it tore.

So Samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. And of course, this is a reference to David. And Samuel highlights the immutable character of God.

God is not going to change his mind. Samuel says, the strength of Israel who is the Lord. He will not lie and he will not relent for he is not a man that he should relent. And the chapter closes with Samuel finishing the job that Saul failed to do.

Remember, Saul was told to kill all of the Amalekites, including the king. And yet he spared Agag. And we're going to get into the application in one moment. But verse 33, Samuel now calls for Agag the king.

And it says, so Samuel hacked Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. Yeah, that's what I said. Let me read that again. Samuel hacked Agag into pieces. You know, that's probably one of those stories that gets left out of the Sunday school curriculum.

I'm guessing. So I've never read that part in the Bible where Samuel takes a sword and just chops this guy up. Yeah, well, that's not something that gets talked about very much. And it is kind of a gruesome situation.

But it's in the Bible for a reason. So we have to ask, what is the spiritual significance? Remember, remember what God called the Amalekites? He called them sinners. So the Amalekites represent sinners.

And Agag is sort of the representative of the whole nation.

He's the king.

So what's the takeaway? Just as Samuel killed Agag, so must we kill the sin in our life. Samuel was willing to do it, which is why he was a great man of God. Saul, on the other hand, was unwilling. Saul did not want to kill the sin in his life.

Saul made excuses. Saul blamed other people. Saul made allowances for sin. He started out okay, but then the problem of pride just grew and grew and grew. And instead of dealing with it, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

Saul didn't deal with his sin. He did not kill the sin in his life. And it just grew and grew and grew until it took him over. Samuel, however, was willing to hack Agag into pieces. Samuel was willing to kill the sin in his life.

I think that's the spiritual application here. There is a saying that sin takes you further than you want it to go. It keeps you longer than you want it to stay, and it costs you more than you want it to pay.

So, in conclusion, here's my admonition to you. Spiritually speaking, hack Agag to pieces. Mortify the flesh. Die to self. Kill the sin in your life and live for Christ. The chapter closes with these words.

Then Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul. And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.